1 Answer

Will the phone work without these caps? Yes, the phone should work without these caps. They serve a purpose and ideally should be replaced but from a testing purpose, the phone will work.

Why are these caps missing? C5202_RF is next to the WLAN IC and is a typical corrosion spot on water damaged phones. The other two capacitors are also on PP_VCC_MAIN. This leads me to believe that whoever had this phone either repaired a water damage condition or tried to repair it without success.

The antenna cable was damaged.

Either way, this points to previous water damage and the fact that the antenna cable is damaged and components are missing also points to a repair that is of questionable quality. If your phone works now, I would be concerned by latent issues that may crop up in the future as this phone was probably not properly decontaminated.

Thankyou , I have fixed a couple water damaged 6's now so i took a chance and bought one on ebay , it was described as in great cosmetic condition (which it is ) but had been water damaged in fresh water and the only repair attempt was being put into rice !! .

I got the phone and board was getting hot when connected to power , all the shields were missing except the cpu shield . and the components i listed were missing , the seller insisted the phone was working fine before it went into water but the phone had been to a repair shop previously .

I ultrasonic cleaned the board and it no longer gets hot , when connected to dc power it draws 30 ma when i press power button it draws 80 ma, when i prompt it to boot with charge cable the amps drop to 0

The reason for the question was to see if it was possible the phone was working before as the seller said ,.

Based on what I've seen, water damaged phones sold on eBay have usually been through at least one repair attempt (usually a poor one) and often times they are missing parts (IC's, components, brackets, screws and shields).

What you were sold is like the car granny only drove on Sundays (according the the used-car salesman) ;>) If you bought it on eBay I would open a dispute and get a refund. It was clearly butchered and went through more than a rice treatment.

@refectio Don't know how eBay works worldwide, might be different from here, but when dealing with faulty items for spares or repair opening a dispute is a complete waste of time. I've been denied every return or refund I tried to get, even when seller clearly lied willingly. Best rule is to never ever deal with people who don't have a long standing reputable business behind.

@arbaman that's interesting. I guess it's because it is sold as-is. Still, when a seller knowingly lies they should be held accountable. Personally, I would not (and have not) ordered dead phones over eBay but have heard and read many horror stories. I have bought damaged phones locally with Kijiji (owned by eBay) but even then, it's amazing how much people will lie.

Just checked your profile...there's worse in life then being stuck on an island in the Mediterranean I guess ;>). I hope you will continue to contribute and learn!

@refectio That's probably the reason, as-is is the key, nonetheless I agree common sense would want some accountability in case of bad faith or the likes. Unfortunately it's a kind of minefield that would need additional personnel and skills I believe eBay is not inclined to invest into..at least this is the impression I got. I've had my share of horror stories too and sourcing reliably devices in need of repair is one of my main problems..but it seems I'm not alone. Hope one day that will get solved too.

I do agree..there might be better than this but there's worse for sure :) Will try my best..learning is one of the best things in life and sharing too :)

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